There will be a lot of Nintendo Switch 2 consoles leaving their boxes today after certainly weeks and probably months of cardboard imprisonment. But there’s one thing that Nintendo has had to tell new owners that they should not do as part of the small print.
The Switch 2 screen has a layer of film over it – and you must not take it off.
In the manual, Nintendo tells users not to take off the layer of film – it’s there for protection in case the display is fully smashed (hopefully by accident). It prevents shards of glass from spreading. “The screen is covered with a film layer designed to prevent fragments scattering in the event of damage. Do not peel it off” is the warning that Nintendo provides.
That warning is contained in very small print in what appears to be a guide to warnings and some usage tips such as how to use the Joy-cons and integrated kickstand. There’s only 2.5 pages of instructions per language in the guide so hopefully it will be more obvious that you don’t need to remove the film when it comes to actually unboxing the console. Otherwise we can see a lot of people removing the film thinking it’s the kind of packaging protector you get on new smartphones.
Although, the film should stay, additional screen protection is already available from several vendors and this would then go on top of the film finish.
The Switch 2’s screen is considerably larger than the original Switch’s 6.2in display at 7.9in, but the console’s thickness hasn’t changed generation-on-generation. When full details of the console were revealed in early April, I was disappointed at the lack of an OLED display as it felt like a downgrade from the 7in Switch OLED. I said at the time that “most of us are very used to OLED displays now on our phones, TVs and high-end laptops and while Mini LED is now a big segment of the large-screen market, OLED is the new mainstream for mobile displays (it already had over 50% of the market in 2024). LCD is yesterday’s news.”
But not everyone felt that way, reasoning that the resulting extra battery life would be worth the retention of LCD over OLED. The 120Hz Switch 2 display certainly looks nice and bright too and with HDR on board things should be very positive on the screen front despite my early reservations.
Although the Switch 2’s display is predictably Full HD in resolution, you can also experience games in up to 4K resolution at 60Hz if you plug it into your TV.
